science has failed our mother earth
by damn expensive eggs
Summary: I dunno. I don't really understand the appeal of eucalyptus.


Michael doesn't like sandalwood, but I burn it anyway. I don't know what his problem is. About the sandalwood, I mean. It reminds me of autumn, which is the season that it is right now, in this moment. I would say that it's a beautiful season because it's when everything around you shrivels up and dies, but the hipsters are starting to catch onto that whole analogy, so I'm dropping it. They also say it symbolizes new beginnings, but I also think that's bullshit.

Sandalwood puts me to sleep, so I can't help it. I burn it by the window so the brisk night air dilutes the smell and doesn't drive poor Michael up the wall.

"I still hate it," Michael says. "Window's not helping."

"Sorry," I say. "We can burn whatever you want when it's done."

"Do you have any more eucalyptus?"

"Uh, yeah, plenty," I say. "You can keep 'em, too. Fuck eucalyptus. I'm not a 40 year-old Wiccan."

"Yeah, well, Wiccans burn sandalwood too."

I shrug, kicking off my creepers, whose platforms are falling apart because I bought them from shitty-ass eBay, because I'm not succumbing to the capitalist mudhole that is Hot Topic, where creepers are fucking $80 and a left leg. So I figure I should just send my money to China, the source of all shitty shoes, and they can use my money for whatever they want because they deserve it more than those capitalist pigs. And if you wanna know the truth, I don't really know where most money goes. I'm just guessing.

Anyway, we're talking about Wiccans. "I guess we can deny our secret Wiccan identities," I say.

"Yeah," Michael says absently. He sits on my carpet and kicks his shoes off too, his shoes which are significantly better than mine.

We sit in silence kinda just for a second. The smoke from the incense is gravitating toward him, and he just shoos it away. He buries his nose inconspicuously in his palm, probably thinking I won't notice.

"Wanna do my roots?" I ask. "My hair's looking pretty trashy."

He shrugs. "Well, bleach is better than sandalwood. But I'm not in the mood."

"Well, okay. Um." I scoot closer to him. "Are you okay?"

Michael stays behind his hand. "I'm pretty far from it."

"Oh," I say. "I understand."

"No, you don't. It's pretty fuckin' humiliating to be tied to a chair and feel threatened by a fucking gang of house plants."

"Who've you got to be embarrassed for?" I'm like. "Georgie was an asshole all along. It's just you, me, and Hen now."

He coughs. At least the sandalwood is almost done burning. "It's fuckin' degrading, ya know? My folks thought I wasn't good enough so they sent me away. They think I'm still gone, even. I don't-I don't even know how to feel. I'm so fucking done."

I kinda touch his shoulder. "Wanna write a poem about it?"

"There's nothing really poetic about house plants."

"Sure there is," I say. "House plants smell like ass. They give me really bad gas. I hope all plants die. So I can eat my pie."

Michael smiles for the first time in a long time. "I don't even like pie."

"The fuck is wrong with you, you don't like goddamn pie? Why am I friends with you."

He rolls his shoulders and looks away. "No one else to enable your comic book addiction."

I laugh too, and it sounds weird coming out of my face, and smiling feels weird too, like cement cracking or something. It feels big and earthly and important, like the bones in my face are tectonic plates that are being dragged apart by the intense strength of the lithosphere, and the earth's rapid orbit of the sun, and the way the moon follows. That's what is pulling the corners of my lips apart.

But anyway.

"I don't need you to enable me," I'm like. "I'm fine all on my own."

"You never wanna go into a comic book store without me."

"I never even wanna go anywhere without you."

Michael scoffs through his nose, as if what I just said was a joke. The sandalwood has stopped burning, so he's gotten up to replace it with eucalyptus, his punk-ass witch smell. I'm glad he's taking that hocus pocus shit off my hands. Owning it was a lot of pressure.

"You're not going home, are you?" I'm like.

"Hell no. I can't even imagine looking my dad in the face now. Fuck. I can stay here, right?"

Oh, fuck. He wants to stay. That's good. But also bad. I want him to stay. I really do. But I only have a twin bed. It's the resting place of the conformists. That tiny mattress can't contain my pain. So it definitely won't contain Michael's pain, either.

"Yeah. If you don't mind sleeping on the, uh, the bed with me."

He glances at it accusingly. "Yeah. Whatever." He scratches his nose. Finally he takes off his jacket. His sleeves are all wrinkled.

"I'm gonna head to bed soon, I think," I say.

"Oh, are you?" he says. He kneels to look at Robert Smith in his cage. Robert Smith is my pet rat. He's very cuddly, and I think he likes Joy Division as much as I do. Robert Smith isn't from Joy Division, though, you nasty conformist. He's from The Cure. Don't you know anything.

"Yeah."

It's at this point I'm fucking wondering if it was even a good idea to let anything remotely intimate pass my lips. I don't know how he takes these things. So I kinda just have to let it simmer inside me like a pot of disgusting conformist chili.

"Okay. Well, I'm just gonna play with Robert Smith if that's okay."

"Yeah," I say, climbing into bed. I'm still wearing my street clothes, but I'll kick them off eventually, sometime in the night when I get too warm. "Feel free to climb into bed with me whenever."

"Alright," says Michael. He's very preoccupied with Robert Smith. I can't blame him. He's cute as hell. Both him and the rat, I mean.

"Well." I sidle up against the wall to leave space for him. "Good night."

It takes him awhile to respond, but eventually he does. "Night, Pete."

I dunno.

I hope he's okay.


End file.
